Man Sentenced to 2.5 Years for Skimming Credit Cards at Chantilly Restaurant

A former waiter at Moca Asian Bistro in Chantilly’s Eastern Marketplace Plaza was sentenced to 30 months in prison for stealing nearly 600 customers’ credit card numbers in less than a month.

Yaoliang Gao, 23, of Flushing, New York, was sentenced Thursday to 30 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Gao pleaded guilty July 3 to one count of possessing 15 or more unauthorized access devices.

Gao was employed as a waiter at Moca Asian Bistro in Chantilly, Virginia from March 11 to April 8, 2014. According to court documents, Gao would take customers’ credit cards to pay for their meals and then swipe them through a credit card skimming device, which captured the customer’s card information from the magnetic strip.

Before becoming a waiter at the Bistro, Gao reportedly met an individual who gave him the skimmer and agreed to pay him $50 for every credit and debit card number he captured.

On April 8, Gao was caught in the act after a customer observed him doing ”something suspicious” with his credit card. Loudoun County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the scene and took possession of the device, which was found to contain 598 unique credit card numbers. Gao’s actions cost various financial institutions a total of $8,429.

Gao, who is a Chinese citizen, also reportedly overstayed his F-1 Student Visa.

The U.S. Secret Service’s Washington Field Office conducted the investigation with assistance from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Ballantyne prosecuted the case.

Image: Courtesy of Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office